


supercut

by inamorromani



Category: Bleach
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, i cannot spell, i hope this makes sense i havent seen bleach in like twoooo years lol, this one was hard but it was so so fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 08:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23008960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inamorromani/pseuds/inamorromani
Summary: meditations on lonelieness.
Relationships: Hitsugaya Toushirou & Matsumoto Rangiku, Matsumoto Rangiku & Sui Feng | Soifon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





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**Author's Note:**

> for s9mu <3 i hope you like it!!!! this was really hard to write but i ended up really enjoying it hehe :3

  
  


Where Yourichi had been elusive, Rangiku was almost comically unsubtle. In her loneliness, Soifon learns very quickly that it’s easier to use others as a mirror than herself. 

Sometimes, these things just happen. Rangiku reminds her so earnestly of Yourichi  _ because  _ of how different they are. She thinks about how tightly she’d gripped Yourichi’s ankles, unabashedly begged her to stay, to take her away, not to leave her alone. She’d kept every artifact of Yourichi like steps to a scavenger hunt. 

Conversely, Rangiku was the fair, loose fur, the kind that clings, to Yourichi’s elegant silks. Rangiku sticks to her like burrs, whether she means to or not, and it’s almost never pleasant. 

Rangiku, by contrast, is easy to hate. Soifon imagines the feeling is mutual. 

It starts off simply enough; Rangiku goes through Isshin to get to Ichigo to get to Kisuke. She corners Soifon in the courtyard to gossip. 

“Yourichi is healthy, just so you know,” Rangiku tells her offhandedly one evening, “She’s been traveling with her brother, apparently. Did you know him well?” 

Soifon is sitting on the raised platform at the edge of the courtyard, cradling a mug of steaming tea and now struggling to maintain her composure. Rangiku is pushing back her cuticles, pointedly avoiding her gaze. She looks a little sheepish, almost. 

“Toshiro thought maybe you’d like to know,” she continues, “We all have a tremendous deal of sympathy for you.”

“I’d like it if you left me alone,” Soifon says flatly. 

“We do. We really do.” 

Soifon doesn’t repeat herself. Instead, she gets silently to her feet, and crosses the courtyard, leaving Rangiku and her cuticles alone on the platform. 

  
  


It’s not that Rangiku  _ hates  _ Soifon. Truth be told, she actually admires her quite a bit- she’s serious, devout, everything Rangiku thinks she’s failed to be- but Soifon can be nothing short of insufferable. 

She’s uncooperative- it’s not uncommon for members of different divisions to run errands for each other- given the circumstances. Once, they’d crossed into the world of the living together on Toshiro’s behalf, a simple mission collecting intel for the society archives, and Soifon had pulled rank what felt like every step of the way, wearing that unflinchingly cruel and proud expression on her face. 

Maybe she was still bitter about Yourichi, Rangiku reasoned. It would come as no surprise- Soifon wore her adoration for her estranged teacher like her heart on her sleeve. And Yourichi had always been looked to as a shining example when she had been in the society, still, an emblem of ferocity and cunning. Rangiku felt, in that regard, she couldn’t compare, though it might be nice if Soifon acknowledged her for her own strengths- for her optimism, for her pluck, for her discipline when it mattered. 

Ironically, that must have been how Soifon felt, chasing after Yourichi all this time. The only real difference was that Rangiku could care less how Soifon looked at her. It was only frustrating.

  
  


Toshiro comes back from a mission once wrought with tremors and more exhausted than Rangiku thinks she’s ever seen him. She spots him from her bedroom window, his shadow from the moonlight following unsteadily at his side. He looks impossibly small, impossibly young, and comes into his quarters only to collapse gracelessly onto his futon. 

“I’m fine,” he tells Rangiku, his voice soft and muffled by his pillow, “I’m just tired.” 

She pushes his hair back from the side of his face. “You’re sure?” 

“I’m sure,” Toshiro murmurs, “I just need to rest.” 

Rangiku abandons a pair of teacups and a glass of water at his bedside. She clears her throat awkwardly. She’s never liked seeing Toshiro so vulnerable. 

“If there’s anything-”

“Oh,” Toshiro says with a sudden, rattling sigh, “There’s one thing. A couple things.” 

“Please don’t tell me-”

“It has to do with Soifon. She owes me a handful of things from the archives.” 

Rangiku heaves a long suffering sigh and sits back on her hands, throwing her head back and stretching her bare feet in front of her. Frankly, Soifon was just unpleasant to be around- but it was amplified late at night. She was downright aggressive when she had visitors anytime after sunset according to Marechiyo. Rangiku believed him- he wasn’t particularly easy to frighten. 

“Rangiku, you only need to pick them up. It’ll take ten minutes.” 

“You could just have Marechiyo bring them.” 

“Rangiku, please.” 

“You really should be resting. You said it yourself-” 

“ _ Rangiku _ ,” Toshiro says sharply, “Just- just go and pick them up. I’m sure she could use your company.” 

Even like this, freshly exhausted with sweat cooling on his brow, his robes hiked up in awkward, bunched-up pleats of fabric at his hips and his elbows, Toshiro has that same proud, haughty air about him. Even if he didn’t, Rangiku would move heaven and earth for him- but she really, really didn’t want to have to deal with Soifon. 

  
  
  


It’s almost eerily quiet outside Soifon’s quarters. 

There’s still a candle burning inside, casting warm, yellow lines against the platform through her paper windows. It feels a little bit homey, in some strange way- though that’s a feeling Rangiku doesn’t think she’d ever imagine associating with Soifon. 

She raps her knuckles against the edge of her door. 

No- Soifon was cold, unwelcoming; and when she wasn’t, she burned bright and hot and righteously angry. Rangiku didn’t really think Soifon’s sadness had a temperature in that regard- but she knew it was there. 

No response comes. Rangiku knocks on the door again. 

Inside, something shifts, the sound of silk against something plasticy, of a heavy blanket being drawn back. Rangiku catches the faint smell of incense through the paper windows, and can only hope Soifon hadn’t been praying.

Soifon opens the door slowly, her eyes narrowed in a skeptical expression, one hand hidden from Rangiku on the far edge of the door. Rangiku can’t remember the name of her  _ zanpakuto _ \- Suzumi? 

“It’s Suzumebachi, isn’t it?” Rangiku asks.

Soifon blinks at her. “What?” 

“Your  _ zanpakuto _ . Suzumebachi.” 

“What about it?” Soifon asks impatiently. 

“I was just trying to remember.” 

“Rangiku, do you  _ need  _ something?” 

Rangiku hums thoughtfully for a moment, and then snaps her fingers. “Ah! Toshihiro needs something from the archives.” 

“Tell him to go to the archives, then,” Soifon says plainly. She winds a length of braid around her finger and folds her free arm beneath her ribs. She looks supremely annoyed, but not particularly terrifying- in fact, she looks small. In reality, she was barely taller than Toshiro, but the way she tended to carry herself made her seem taller, or at least more markedly distinguished. Rangiku notes, with some small amount of curiosity, that her eyes look a little puffy, and that there’s a tiny shrine on a low table barely visible between her hip and the doorframe. 

Rangiku cranes her neck to peer inside, and Soifon boxes her out. 

“He said you have them already,” Rangiku explains, trying to mask her disappointment at having her curiosity spoiled. 

Soifon’s expression softens. “Oh,” she says sheepishly, “Oh, that’s right. Those essays on early codification in the society.” 

“Right,” Rangiku says uncertainly, “Those.” 

Soifon clears her throat. “Wait here.”

She leaves the door open, just slightly behind her, and disappears into her bedroom. Rangiku spares a glance at the shrine. It sits against the wall opposite her sitting cushions, and is adorned with a smattering of yellow candles and ceramic cat statues. There’s a tiny stack of letters, too, a leatherbound journal, two tiny, silver bells, a cotton hair tie. 

Rangiku grimaces. 

She tries not to think about how deeply Soifon must grieve for Yoruichi- tries not to think about how devastating it would be to lose Toshiro that way. Evidently, though, Soifon’s relationship to Yourichi- and in some sense, her own relationship to Toshiro- was more open, more intimate than relationships between captains and lieutenants tended to be, either for better or for worse. Rangiku wonders if Soifon maybe looked to Yourichi like an older sister, like a mother, like something different altogether.

Soifon reappears, and Rangiku takes note again of how swollen her eyes are. She sets the stack of papers and journals neatly in Rangiku’s arms and smiles politely. 

“Is there anything else you need, then?” she asks, clearly a little tense. Rangiku blinks at her. 

“Did you love Yourichi?” 

Soifon’s eyes go wide for a moment- but her self-preserving instinct seems to fail, and she’s stuck shock-still, staring at Rangiku like a deer in the proverbial headlights. Rangiku feels a little sad for her. 

“Sorry,” she says quickly, “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“I thought I did everything perfectly,” Soifon says sternly. Rangiku frowns. “I didn’t understand why she left. I don’t think I really ever will.” 

“Officially-”

“I know, officially, why she left. She’s told me herself. It’s written in every report I’ve ever read about her. That doesn’t mean I-” she swallows thickly. She rubs the back of her neck nervously, her mouth twitching into a frown. “That doesn’t mean I  _ understand _ .” 

“Ah,” Rangiku says, at a loss.

It’s quiet outside- there’s cicadas and crickets humming in tritones, the quiet sound of the wind, the distant echoes of the men somewhere in the sprawling courtyard- Kenpachi, no doubt, arrogant and drunk and telling old war stories. It’s easy to feel lonely here. Rangiku thinks she understands that. 

“I appreciate your- er, concern. Interest. Whatever it is,” Soifon says honestly, “It’s just-”

“It’s hard,” Rangiku supplies, “It’s hard. I know. I mean, I don’t  _ know _ , but I know.”

Soifon sighs. She closes her eyes and braces her hand against the doorframe, resting her head against her knuckles. “I loved her. I try not to think about it.” 

Rangiku nods, shifting the stack of essays in her arms. “I don’t blame you.” 

Soifon gives Rangiku a last, unreadable look, and closes the door. 

  
  


Rangiku delivers the papers to Toshiro, and then finds Kenpachi and Marechiyo to drink. 

They sit on their hands in the center of the courtyard, a glass bottle of sake abandoned at Kenpachi’s feet. Above them, over the roar of Kenpachi’s laugh, the stars take on a greenish, glittering quality, purple clouds passing before them, behind them. 

Rangiku closes her eyes. It’s easy to feel lonely here. She thinks she understands. 


End file.
